A shorter version of this post first appeared as "Life, the way it was" in The Hindu on November 28, 2011. (A note: The accompanying photo in The Hindu is not from Dharti ke Lal as the caption mistakenly says, but from Do Bigha Zameen to which the article refers.)
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s directorial debut film Dharti ke Lal (1946) begins and ends on an idyllic note, with a sailboat gently wafting across the water in rural Bengal. But what happens in between is the epic ugliness of hunger, poverty, and human suffering. Set against the backdrop of 1943’s Bengal famine in which nearly 5 million people perished, the film documents the anguish suffered by the family of a farmer and his two sons.
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| The "Bhookha hai Bengal" chorus song in Dharti ke Lal |
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s directorial debut film Dharti ke Lal (1946) begins and ends on an idyllic note, with a sailboat gently wafting across the water in rural Bengal. But what happens in between is the epic ugliness of hunger, poverty, and human suffering. Set against the backdrop of 1943’s Bengal famine in which nearly 5 million people perished, the film documents the anguish suffered by the family of a farmer and his two sons.
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